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Passionate Uprisings: Iran's Sexual Revolution

There is perhaps no place in the world today
where the stakes of partying and having sex are higher than in present-day Iran.
Drinking and dancing can lead to arrest by the morality police and a punishment
of up to 70 lashes. Consequences for sex outside of marriage can be even more
severe—up to 84 lashes, or even public execution.

But even under the
threat of such harsh punishment, a sexual revolution is taking place. Iranian
youth continually risk personal safety to meet friends, date, and, ultimately,
to have sex. In the absence of any option for overt political dissent, young
people have become part of a self-proclaimed revolution in which they are using
their bodies to make social and political statements. Sex has become both a
source of freedom and an act of political rebellion.

With unprecedented
access inside turn-of-the century Iran, Pardis Mahdavi offers a firsthand look
at the daily lives of Iranian youth. They are given a voice as she tells the
stories of their intertwined quests for sexual freedom, political reform, and a
better future – but not a future without risk. The sexual revolution is also
leading to increased levels of abortion, HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted
diseases, and ongoing emotional troubles and mental illnesses, with worrying
implications for Iranian youth and Iranian society at large.

Passionate
Uprisings is a fascinating, ground-breaking, and personal look into a society
that is poorly understood—if it is understood at all—by the majority of
Westerners today. Mahdavi's narrative provides not only an invaluable insight
into the real lives of much of Iran's population, but shows how sexual politics
and the youth culture could even destabilize the current regime and change the
course of Iranian politics.